What a Letter
by Authorized
Summary: When Rouge goes on an easy mission to prevent a counterattack from Sonic, she finds a letter that inspires Dr. Robotnik to come up with a new plan that drags in Tails. What did the letter say? Why does Tails have to be a part of all this? Discontinued
1. No Blueprint

**This story takes no particular place in the Sonic timeline, just a lame story. Tails is also retconned to eleven for the sake of this story. I hope it's decent.**

* * *

No Blueprint

Dr. Robotnik's chapped lips tightened as he took two gnarled fingers and twisted his mustache. He paced toward his surveillance cameras which acted as his eyes throughout his giant mechanical fortress. Then he turned back around to see Rouge pulling her sleeved gloves up. Shadow was patiently waiting for the good doctor to continue, but his eyes were narrowed.

"Ahem. Now, concerning our budget deficit…_I_ don't have as much money as I did only months ago. _I am in trouble_, and this whole fortress is about to go belly up if _I_ can't figure out what the hell _I_ have to do!"—the scientist pounded his fist into his palm several times to accentuate his point. "_I am stressed_!"—Eggman paused and gauged their reactions. "We know Sonic's a problem, he's always the problem, but there's someone else assisting him in dodging all of these bullets, the, the fox-boy …" he trailed off with a sneer.

His appointed assistants didn't seem to mind all that much. The two never did when he was discussing something that was actually important. They always jumped on those extra details though, which at times, would completely derail the meeting into a cacophony. Well, not this time, he huffed. After that meeting, he would be seen as a true leader of malevolence and evil.

"That being said, to stop Tails from intercepting my plans, I'm going to send one of you on a mission to sabotage his efforts, so that my entrance to the city will go unnoticed until **I** want myself to be noticed. And I think it should be the best spy here." Robotnik's eyes rolled to Rouge. She was already staring intently at him, listening for further instruction. _That certainly got her attention, _he mused.

"Go on." Rouge pushed.

"Mhm. Tonight, camp out near his laboratory. When he leaves, go in and search for anything that even hints to the counterattack of my war machine, blueprints, a-a mechanical doodad, whatever! Take this camera with you, as well--"

"What's it do?" Rouge wrinkled her nose while holding the small contraption.

"It tells the time! What do you _think_ it does?" Robotnik raised his voice. "As I was saying, get back here and simply report to me what you found._ Tomorrow, _I'll modify my newest war machine to be impervious to any weakness it may have had before, and-I'll-crush-the-city! Is that clear, Rouge?" said the doctor as his mustache twitched.

"Clear as a jewel?" She smirked as she raised her brow. Immediately following that question, a sharp intake of breath and a sigh emanated from the doctor.

"Yes yes, you will receive eh…compensation for this," Robotnik groaned as he plunged his large hand in his pocket to pull out a topaz smaller than his palm. "Now go!" She simply shrugged at his demand and briskly walked out of the room, feeling his demanding stare all the way from where he stood. Behind his goggles, Robotnik looked at the gem with his eyes narrowed.

"_Hopefully_," he thought, "_She will not demand to have any jewels larger than this one." _He flipped the precious stone so that it would glint underneath the light.

"Shadow, would you like to look at…" Shadow had already left. Robotnik was not one to be ignored, but he wasn't going to get into it with a three foot high, ink-black hedgehog. The scientist decided to be truly alone when he dimmed the lights' stare as he clapped twice and ambled up the wide, metal staircase. This action was followed by rapid clanking down the flight of steps. "I'm going the wrong way,"—his palm pushed into his bald head. "I'll take the elevator." Once he stepped inside, he pressed an indented metal button, and without skipping a beat, the elevator shifted before dropping down to the basement. On the way down, he reminded himself that he needed to do something about the new smell of the elevator, to him it was nauseating. Before he took in another breath, a deep "boong" alerted him to the shifting, metal door.

This had to be the most impressive floor of the whole fortress, if Robotnik did say so himself. The large, uneven concrete ground and ceiling with deep red beams housed two kinds of machines only; the 2004 Egg-soldier series and his latest war machine, the Egg-Roll. A brutish giant that bore a strong resemblance to its creator, and for extra strength it was practically carved from one steel ball, with a few functions added to keep the machine from getting stuck. Around forty-eight feet in diameter, weighing in at an impressive sixty-one tons, this ball was sure to mow down any obstacle in its way, but with a costly drawback. There had to be ramps to steer the ball towards the city to prevent flying far outside its boundaries. Of course, the scientist added some boosters to try and push the ball in the direction he wanted to, but at that speed and with that much weight, it was going to do much, so ramps it was.

As always, his machines had the option of being attached with his infamous Egg-Mobile. To keep the Egg-Mobile flush with the metal sphere, he made it so only the convex top of his mobile flyer would stick out. The other glaring fault of the machine was that it would be hard to pursue the hedgehog should he ever arrive. The ball would be spinning so fast that placing a window on the ball to try and find Sonic was out of the question. Along with the yellow ramps, he had also placed nearly a hundred cameras that would transmit the images inside of the chassis; a quick fix to such a severe problem.

"Speaking of problems…" Robotnik reeled himself back in. He pulled down his left sleeve to reveal a microphone on his wrist. He punched in four numbers, and he gave himself three seconds before continuing. "Rouge…Rouge have you arrived at that workshop yet?"

"Huh?" a voice replied with a hint of frustration. Meanwhile, Rouge was having a rough time dealing with the 87 degrees Fahrenheit dusk and strong gusts.

"_Did you arrive yet_?" Robotnik repeated himself with impatience.

She answered this with "Almost."

"How close is '_almost_'?" The doctor hid his whining with a mocking tone.

"I mean like, maybe four minutes alright? I'm having some trouble over here with these winds, and for the middle of May, it is hot. I'm _dying_ over here!" Rouge complained.

Robotnik snorted into the small speaker, expressing his apathy. "Yes, it must be so taxing on you to fly _all the way there, I'm sorry._"

As her ears rang of the loud crackle of the fat man's booming voice, Rouge's half-lidded gaze quickly changed into a wide-eyed glare. She couldn't believe how rude her boss was acting right now. She had always bickered with him more than Shadow, and Robotnik hardly ever got onto his case. This really took the cake. Before she risked yelling at the scientist, she muted her communicator with a "Hmph."

"Rouge? Rouge! Hey! God…damn it." He growled as he gave up and decided to get back to the surveillance room.

--

Meanwhile, Rouge continued to tough out the warm, humid breezes. They felt like they were coming from directly underneath her. The updrafts pushed her every which way, like a toy airplane on a string.

"Ugh, I can't stand it. Even to nature, I'm some sort of plaything!" she whined to no one in particular. Rouge always paid attention to the weather, especially during the summertime, as she was vulnerable to becoming woozy and getting sunburns. In the forecast, no such event of a warm or cold front was even suggested. These mysterious "gusts" had to be man-made. As she tried to go further down, the winds blew harder, carrying some of the grit high into the air and into her face. Rouge managed to make out what appeared to be a metal grate, and something was spinning underneath.

_I knew something was up. It must be one of fox-boy's experiments, _she thought as her tongue rolled against her bottom row of teeth. Were those a part of the counterattack against Robotnik's war machine? Better take a picture just in case. She took out the compact camera as she waited for it to focus and took a snap of a large metal grate covering the ground, the fan now motionless. There were a couple dozen of these, she noticed as she tried to peer through the walls of the woods. As the rest of the fans began to slow down, she could smell the forest air again, a pungent, syrupy, smoky aroma. The bat just decided to let her black button nose open up to it all, she might be there for a while, anyway. She slowly twisted her toned body so that her legs were in front of her, and her heels made contact with the soft soil. Her delicate wings flexed outward once more, and then hid themselves behind her back.

She whisked her hand through her hair to pick out any nasty dirt. The texture of it felt disgusting; dry, tiny, rough and grainy, a lot like sand. Unlike the smooth, varied feel of the makeup she used to powder her face or the lotion she used to moisturize her skin. Rouge put her priorities at the front of her mind again, and she tried to shake off the thought that there was filth in her gorgeous locks. Her heels sank into the uneven mud as she made her best effort not to brush up against anything else that would taint her beautiful appearance. The moon was cleverly hidden by the clouds that night, but it would still try to observe the Earth below it by taking a gaze through the thick sky above and bathing the landscape with the slivers of light it reflected. If this was at all a magnificent sight to behold, Rouge couldn't say. She had gotten very close to the laboratory, but it didn't matter if she was twenty yards or twenty miles away. She was going to have to wait it out, all the while crouching uncomfortably behind some leafy window to stay out of sight. Or did she? She thought the situation over once more. A moment later, her hands were on her hips.

"I'm gonna do this my way, I've had enough." She stood back up, and after a vain moment of dusting herself off, dived out of the barrier of the forest and rolled up to the front of the laboratory.

--

"This place is a mess…"

Tails had his head propped up by his rough glove. For the past hour or so, he kept falling in and out of a trance that made his eyes dribble like a basketball. He had ignored his mattress for over two days now; the bed without a hint of his warmth. The boy only went to sleep once every other day anymore, he felt confident enough to continue experimenting and refining his beloved machines without a dream to take the magic away. He sighed as he continued to make an outline for a new electrical route for the laboratory. The old route appeared to be jumbled, with some wires going nowhere. He had to carry out the new plan soon, before the outdated route created a blackout that would debilitate his work. Tails took another deep breath through his snout, though he picked up on something new this time. It wasn't any type of metal or rust or gas he had ever smelt before. It was nice, a creamy, jasmine vanilla. Too little, too late. Before he could turn around to survey his lab, two, soft fingers rapped on his narrow shoulders.

"Rouge?" he asked, incredulous.

A silky, yet threatening tone from behind him spoke. "Aww, are we having trouble sleeping? Allow me." The fingers curled back into a group and snaked around to clasp his muzzle. Tails upper body thrashed around for only a moment before Rouge's grip tightened to where her palms painfully smeared the skin underneath his fur, as if it were pulling his nerves to the surface. At that point, he didn't know what else to do but express his disapproval with a loud grunt. Rouge took another look at the kid before smirking.

"Far be it from me to tell you when bedtime is, but I've got a job to do."

Tails' became overpowered with a sense of weariness. Her delicate, yet firm hands blocked the oxygen his lungs yearned for. Another fifteen seconds passed, a muffled rattle alerted the bat to his unconsciousness. After his chin rolled down and rested on his chest, she grabbed the scruff of his neck and gently laid him down on the cool linoleum. The search for clues began.

Rouge wasted no time. Her steel heels clicked along the floor at a brisk pace as she began a full circumspection of the lab. The woman made her way towards a large spotlight with a complex, scarlet frame attached to the ceiling. It could have possibly been a tool Tails was going to lend Station Square in case Eggman ever attacked at night... suspicious enough. She pulled out the camera and with a click and a flash; she dropped all interest in the contraption. Another invention she took notice of was a dull, yellowish ramp.

"_A ramp…oh! Just like the ones Eggman showed me and Shadow, as he lectured us two weeks before about his upcoming toy!_" Rouge's conscience echoed. "_I have to take a picture of this._" She took a few snapshots of the ramp, from the front, from behind, and from the side so Eggman could later measure it. After twenty minutes of finding nothing else, Rouge made an inference as to why there were no blueprints to be found—Tails must have done it all of his drafts on a computer. As enticing as the option was to try and hack the computer and reveal the inner workings of Miles Prower's mind, it was out of the question. She didn't have the password, no need to risk setting off any alarms that may call for the little fox's friends to arrive. It would still be a novel idea to check his "office".

The moonlight shone dimly through the clerestories and passed the transom above his office door, likely the most ornate piece of architecture that she saw in the whole workshop. Not until the polished, wooden door swung open with impressive force was the room violated with the eerie hum and occasional clang of the laboratory. The first thing her eyes locked onto was a metal file cabinet. She hastily walked over to it and started pulling all the doors out, looking for something that preceded the actual creation of the machines she glanced at earlier. Still nothing, nothing but little, hand-painted models of various buildings located in Station Square, oddly enough. The brush strokes were rough and uneven.

"_Strange, I thought fox-boy would be a little more caring when it came to painting such intricate designs…_" The bat thought as she used both hands to rotate the city hall sculpture. The building gave a nod towards Greek architecture with its pillars, and a hint of neo-gothic architecture, looking at the decorative windows. A strange mix, indeed. Out of all the models, there was one particular model that seemed to wear a smoother coating than the rest, with a sparkly level of coating underneath. The bright red biplane had a silver propeller at the front. Sonic's name was emblazoned in tall, fat, italicized letters on the side. Unlike the other ones, this model had been made from steel, and was cool to the touch. She carefully rolled the plane so its underbelly faced the ceiling. There appeared to be some small lettering. Her pupils dilated so she could take in more light to read the encryption…

"CLASSIC SONIC BIPLANE MODEL 'TORNADO', c.1992"

This description was embossed on the bottom hatch of the biplane. Already curious, and having never seen this version of the Tornado, she slipped off her right glove so her fingernail could push the latch. Rouge jumped when she heard a small crinkle that broke the silence. There was paper in the small compartment. Her fingers pinched the little slip and tried not to have it snag on anything. She unfolded the note and began to read through the message inside. As her finger skimmed the words, dragging her eyes through the difficult, vivid metaphors and imagery the note gave her, she was at first perplexed.

"_It's a…love letter. Fox-boy wrote someone a love letter!_" she chuckled. He must have staved off from his tinkering hobbies for a while to sit down and write this supposedly honest letter, so she commended Tails for that. Her little moment was short-lived, however.

"_There's no way a little rabbit like Cream is that physically developed, plus the note is written above her level..." _She slowly began to calculate. "_Is it Amy? I don't know…maybe?" _Some discomfort began to eat at her. Rouge stretched her tapered arms behind her back and rolled her shoulders. Even for her, the letter seemed like a puzzle. It was so well written for someone who was only twelve years old. She couldn't find any other girl in her mind that Tails had encountered more than five times. And then all of a sudden she could. Her rosy cheeks became as pallid as her white, close-lying fur. This was the girl? Her small tail kept twitching to the left. Her shock began to escape her audibly.

"_What…is he serious? Where did these feelings come from?_" She murmured as she folded the thin note back up and slipped it between her cleavage and chest pad.

Immediately, she straightened up and made her way out the door, out of the laboratory, and out of the now tense environment. The smoky smell she enjoyed not half an hour ago now only added to the intensity of the letter; it strengthened its disturbing, poetic aphorisms to her, it was psychologically strangling. She spread her wings to their fullest extent and began the journey back to Eggman's fortress. She felt even warmer than she did before, and her thought process was working so irrationally at this point that the letter itself seemed to produce warmth of its own, burning her bosom. Then she remembered her last exchange with the doctor. He must've been furious at her for turning the transmitter down. She collected herself and tried to keep her voice low and calm when she rolled her fingers to type in the sequence.

"Eg-Doctor? Doctor Robotnik?" she successfully delivered her question. One moment, two moments, three moments in time…

"Yes, what is it? Surely you must have something by now…" a garbled, thick voice snarled.

"You're right, sir. I gathered some information that you might find useful. It's not much, but the kid doesn't have any hand-drawn blueprints. I'm heading your way." She coolly stated.

"Good, good. Tell me more when you get back here." said Robotnik. "And remember, it's the sixteenth floor."


	2. Splash and Dash

**Hello folks. I haven't updated this story in a while, but now I think I know where I want to go with it. You'll notice that this chapter uses similes a lot more than the last one. I hope I didn't overdo it and I really hope I wrote this whole chapter in past tense without switching to present tense by accident. I'm sorry that this chapter was uploaded a full three weeks after I promised.**

Splash and Dash

Having to get so close as to smell the brushed metal surface of the recorder so the microphone would pick up on his speech, he began in a sincere, grateful tone…

_For the first time in months, I've found some space to take a few weeks off, for me anyway, it looks like Shadow and Rouge will still have to work-hahaha! Ah, I won't put as much faith in the Eggroll's chance of destroying Sonic as I have for my past mechanical monsters, so when I attack tomorrow, the goal is not to go after Sonic. Instead, I'll be downright belligerent and smash the pathetic tinker-toy Station Square causing as wide a destruction path as possible. Hopefully, Sonic and company will help rebuild the junk I smash and the manhunt for me will end within a few days from then. In terms of physics, rings, chaos emeralds, hyper-dimensional space, I haven't made any astounding breakthroughs. Disappointing. My journals have been reduced to something like an idiot's Lazy Sunday blog…uh…_

_On a much less serious subject, I seem to have noticed that there's a Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon on television. How cute. Intrigued by the strangely colored backgrounds and how ridiculous the idea of a cartoon based off Sonic was, I stopped my channel surfing and leaned in a little close; it was titillating f-for maybe a split second. A few minutes later, I heard my name mentioned by the animated hedgehog. The screen panned to a fortress, and my interest rose even more. I was at the edge of my seat and then…then I leaned back into my natural repose. I was outraged at the portrayal of myself! My mustache looks nothing like broom bristles nor have I ever had a pin-shaped head! At least they did a good job at showing that Sonic is an arrogant prickly __**prick,**__ and that his two-tailed friend is completely useless. Rouge saw me fuming at this, so she made mention of how my likeness is all over the even bigger international wasteland known as the World Wide Web. When I get these renovations done in the coming month, the little punks responsible for this humiliation will help me by becoming the first human beings to be used in a badnik alongside the flickies!_

_**END OF RECORDING, JULY 17, 2008, 23:53:06 PM**_

Dr. Robotnik had riled himself up while recording this rather unspectacular entry, but he knew just the solution for a healthy release. The scientist flung the contraption so it flew into the wall with an unremarkable, tinny clatter. Before he ended up throwing something more fragile and explosive, he got his fury under control, decided to leave it at that and made his way down to the sixteenth floor. Rouge was due to be there any minute. Speak of the devil; there she sat with her legs crossed.

"Ta-dah." She said in a flat tone, with the camera in her palm. Robotnik snatched it and transferred the image to a large bubble screen and took a gander at it. Despite the camera's small size, the pictures were extremely defined in each capture, perfect for a stickler for detail like Eggman.

He turned halfway around and with a palm facing upward, mentioned "Well, you made sure to take several pictures of what you found so I can get a…an idea of the scale…"

Rouge remained perfectly still so her ears could pick up on the little tidbits Eggman mumbled to himself. He always did.

"Why would he have a ramp anyway, I got ramps…what…a spotlight too, for nighttime. Hm, I'm not attacking at night, why would I do that…"

Rouge's fangs bit down on the corners of her mouth to fight back a grin. This was the one recurring instance in which she saw a "human side" to the doctor. Plus, it was just plain odd to listen to. Her eyes were closed, as if trying to block out Robotnik in her mind. She made an effort to take deep breaths, and she almost lost it while doing so. By the time he turned back around, he noticed the bat appeared to be in a good mood. Within seconds? Impossible.

"What are you so happy about all of a sudden?" His brows rose.

Almost gasping, Rouge retorted "What? I didn't know I was restricted to acting serious for the moment."

"Are you hiding something?"

"No…I'm sorry, I won't smile _anymore_ around you." She said almost too quickly. Eggman waited another moment to see if she had to say anything else. When he was convinced, he would continue.

"Well, you didn't give me much. A ramp and a spotlight." The doctor reminded her of her poor work.

"I told you,"—she said with some frustration "the kid's got nothing on paper. It's all on hard drive. And there migh-

"Why didn't you take the hard drive?" He asked as if it was the easiest question he had asked all night.

"Be**cause**…"—she started again, ready to stand up and kick him right square in his pug face "It might have set off alarms and then everything would have been ruined."

Both pause.

"What are you getting so flustered for?" he pushed with a tone of voice entirely unlike his own. It sounded clear and unfiltered.

"Because I don't know what the **hell** else you want me to say!" Half confused, half pissed, Rouge threw up her hands in defeat.

"_Watch it._" Dr. Robotnik said as he furrowed his brow and leant in and towered over her. Rouge cleared her throat and did her best to smile and placate the doctor. He took that as a sign of her giving in, and he backed off but kept his gaze upon hers.

"Just go to your room. I'll sort this all out myself, then." He barked as he waved his arm to dismiss her. Rouge didn't skip a beat and got right up and stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

"_Ooooh!_ Who does that fat bastard think he is? If I wasn't short compared to him, I'd…Ugh!" was all she could think of. Dr. Robotnik was just so unpredictable. One second, he would be laughing about the most mundane screw up, the next second, one's lapels would be twisted into a wrinkly mess by his giant, brutish hands as he hollered about how he would throttle the life out of you like air from a Ziploc bag. Standing at a strapping six foot eight, with impenetrable goggles, he was a frightening man, indeed. The only clues she had to determine his mood were the doctor's bare eyebrows and his twitching mustache. Two years of working with him did nothing to change her hidden uneasiness around the eccentric man. She shuddered as her train of thought began to switch to a different track. She needed a cool shower to lift the grime and yuck from the surface of her taut skin.

Within minutes, she was vigorously scrubbing the salty sweat away, with her jumpsuit placed in a laundry hamper. As the many, small, cool droplets began to beat down on her arms, they all melted into an icy film. As she took her fingers and her scrubber to spread the soap around in short, directional strokes, she could barely see the reflection of her other hand. Night after night, this was still an interesting action for her to witness. The stream suddenly seemed chilly due to her lack of movement, so she continued making her way down to her shapely legs.

Outside of her locked room, a small, red robot was rolling across the metal quilt-like floor towards the bat's room. It's "hand" was actually a square pad with Eggman's handprint smack dab in the middle. As it approached Rouge's door, the robot stretched up, its spine making a noise similar to a ridged straw being pulled through a cup's lid. It placed the handprint onto the door's right side, and a tone that gave the robot a signal to enter. The robot went straight towards Rouge's jumpsuit and searched the chest pad. To the machine's steel fingers, Rouge's chest pad meant nothing. No subtleties in texture, no recognition of where it was still warm, no nothing. It could only distinguish between what was small and could be plucked out of the suit. A crinkle alerted it to just that.

Without the slightest squeak from its gears, it left the room and the door closed shut. Soon, it approached the stairs, and some suction cups came from underneath the robot's treads, so it wouldn't make noise while going down the stairs. A fat, rhythmic plucking bounced off the steps and was absorbed by the grand fortress as it moved diagonally downward, just above the steps as it rode the wall. The suction cups disappeared beneath the treads. Back to rolling about the place. It had two floors to go. This was a machine on a mission!

Meanwhile, there was a slippery twist of a handle, a rumbling silence, and then one last burst of water. There were so many leaking droplets coming from the faucet that it made a flangering noise as it went down the drain. Another silence.

"Oh…that felt nice…" Rouge moaned.

She slid the foggy glass door open and made her way towards her lingerie. The bat wanted something a little more casual tonight rather than sexual, so she slipped on a pair of smog-black underwear and a bra to match. She slipped on a translucent, tinted nightgown as a finishing touch. She noticed that the lid to her laundry had been open.

"I know I closed that before. Did I forget to check if I was carrying anything? I don't want to wash any jewels." Rouge thought aloud. She took the top part of her jumpsuit and flipped it upside down. Nothing. Nothing? By this point, the bat was starting to become unnerved. She tried retracing her steps as to when she could've lost the private letter, when suddenly…

_"Are you hiding something?"_ a voice echoed in her conscience.

"Eggman, you snoop!" Rouge shouted with a little hesitation as she barreled barefoot out of her room and down the stairs. One floor to go.

Only one floor to go for the brave red robot, now rolling at full speed, its engine sounding just like a wind-up toy truck, except even more labored. The gears whined as it cut to the left, towards the surveillance room. Rouge's feet were now practically fluttering, barely touched the floor, light as a soap bubble. She leaned in ever so slightly downward, in a sprinter's running style. Her ears began to pick up on a grinding noise that kept sputtering. She decided to up her top speed one more time as she was quickly gaining on the little machine. It was embarrassing enough to read the letter from someone six years younger than her, but Dr. Eggman? She would never hear the end of it. The robot made one last cut, now in the surveillance room itself! Rouge sprung for it. Airborne, she targeted the thing and her foot was now coming down like an axe on wood. Too late. The robot attached the letter to a parachute and fired it like a missile, fractions of a second before its head was smashed to glitter. She dashed towards the projectile to intercept it, but it did a high-arching loop, throwing her off its path, and it sailed right into Dr. Robotnik's fingers.

"And what might this be?" the doctor hissed. "I thought you weren't hiding anything from me, Rouge."

"It's private." She pleaded. "Please, it doesn't have anything to do with you, sir."

Robotnik sneered. "I'll be the judge of that." As his eyes went from hers to the note, he looked back up. "Hey! What in the _world_ are you wearing?"

"It's a nightgown, _okay_?" she snapped back in defense while her eyes were fixed upon her feet.

The doctor unfolded the tiny yellow paper with impatience and began reading the letter to himself. His reactions were the same as Rouge's, except with a touch of malevolence. Suddenly, an explosion. A wheezing, despicable explosion of laughter. Rouge couldn't stand it. The reverberation of his voice in the room amplified his annoying laugh to the bat.

"What's so funny?!" she said with a tremor in her demand.

Robotnik was laughing uproariously. "This is, this is—HA, Ha ha haha ha! _You Rouge_…and _this _boy? That's insane!"

"There's nothing between me and him! I had no idea he had these feelings for me until a few hours ago!" Rouge bared her teeth, ready to attack. Her legs tensed up, revealing just how toned and incredibly muscular her thighs and calves were. Her face twisted into an enraged grimace as she was preparing herself to snatch the letter and destroy it, until…

"New plan!" Eggman's voice boomed. "Instead of piloting the Eggroll myself to attack Station Square, Tails will!"

"What?" was all Rouge could manage to say without being cut off, staring at him.

"Yes! I'll set the Eggroll on a predetermined path with him inside, knocking him here and about inside my war machine." The doctor's hands pedaled around each other into a blurred wheel to show his imaginative unscrambling of the little fox's body. "I just have to disable the nano-layer between the outer shell and the inner chassis so the inner chassis will roll around the same speed the outside does! This way, I can do some major damage to Station Square, and,"—he turned around with his fingers drumming the pair of goggles resting on his forehead, "We can subdue that, that little pest! We just need him to come here! And guess who's going to catch him?" His eyebrows rose as he paused, motioning towards Rouge to finish his mental enthusiasm.

"Me."

"Yes, _you!_" His finger flicked from his wrist and stopped an inch away from her nose. Rouge's eyelashes fluttered faster than a hummingbird's wings as she registered his large finger, close to jabbing her beautiful nose.

"Why do I have to do everything lately?" Rouge leaned back and crossed her arms with an indignant look on her face.

"Because **I **said so!" Eggman bellowed, putting much emphasis on the word "I". "And if you must take someone along to do this take _Shadow_." As the scientist slowly began to reel himself back into his regular state, he felt a little hot from flailing around for the past few minutes. He was tired, and it was time to retire to his bedroom. He took a few deep breaths and began to walk out of the surveillance room, but something caught his eye; Rouge's nightgown. He stopped, turned to her once more, and making no effort to hide his disgust, said "And Rouge?"

"Yeah? What?" she groused.

Dr. Robotnik sneered "Wear those terrible things somewhere else, out of my sight from now on, understand?"

"Whatev—yes sir." She corrected herself as she saw his sneer become more pronounced. She watched him walk up the stairs and fade away, the man standing straight up and with his shoulders rolled back. Rouge took the cue and let out a yawn as she too, left the dark room.


End file.
